I was fascinated by this photography project by Jason Travis . His project intended to "capture a portion of [his subjects'] lives in terms of what each individual considered essential enough to carry around with them everyday" which is a pretty interesting concept when you think about it. It made me think twice about the items in my purse, that's for sure.

BTW, this is not the same as EDC (everyday carry). EDC is the principal of having a functional, rugged & minimal assortment of tools/gear that serves common tasks and emergency situations. This photo set is bag dumps, but much of it is obviously stuff that people don't actually carry daily, but items that these cool folks choose to have in their photograph because their items define who they are. Lame. It's a contrived photo shoot, not as much about documenting essential items they'd have on them if stopped while walking down the street.